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A while ago I was phoned by my bank who proceeded to ask me the usual security questions, mother's maiden name, two digits from my password, etc. Great, they were checking who I was - but who was I talking to? It could have been anyone that I was giving my passwords to. As suggested above my response to unsolicited incoming calls is always that I will call them back on the usual customer services number. Surely standard procedure for all banks when calling you unannounced should be to ask you to call them back and say nothing more? Bob

I susupect the bank see this as an internal transfer and would claim that this is different to an order to pay a third party. After they refused to change the payment when I phoned I tried to stop the transfer via the internet. It went through as if the transfer was cancelled but the next day it was back and still active. The important point is that if the bank are told that there are insufficient funds and asked to take approriate action they surely have a legal obligation to mimimise their loss arising from the breech of contract.

First came the divorce and all the costs of setting up a new home, suporting my ex for a while (I'm a good guy, really), paying for the kids.... The bank came to the rescue, great! Then came unemployment. I contacted all creditors and explained the situation, Most were willing to suspend interest and accept token payments, except my bank who refused outright to reduce the interest and suggested a reduced repayment that was quite clearly not within my means based on the information I had given them which could be easily verified. Realising that if the regular loan repayment went out of my current account there would not be enough left to live on I tried to stop the standing order. Impossible. The bank continued to make transfers from my current account to the loan account for several months. My question - is this legal? In effect transferring the debt from a low interest loan account to the punitive interest rates of an now overdrawn current account when they had been advised of the situtation? Why should they be able to pay themselves when, had the standing order been to anyone else, they would have to stop it on my instructions? Isn't there a legal requiremet for the bank to minimise its loss resulting from the breach of contract and have they failed to do this? Not to mention their obligations under the Banking Code. The annoying and quite alarming thing is that until the matter was passed to a collection agancy I didn't seem to be talking to anyone who was listening or able to make a decision - just call centre staff reading instructions from the screen. Even then I didn't get to talk to the real decision makers. Of course as the loan repayments continued to be taken there was not enough to pay the direct debits... And the PPI on the loan didn't apply to me even though I had been charged for it in full at day one (not made clear). I'm about to settle the debt but no more than I have to. Advice would be appreciated. Thanks.